TVNZ has just announced an $85 million loss and a huge $39 million drop in revenue.
I’ve never seen why taxpayers own a commercial media company. There is a case to be made for owing public service broadcasters such as Radio NZ and Maori TV, but not a commercial broadcaster.
Think if ten years ago we had sold TVNZ. It was making a $35 million profit so could have sold for say $400 million. Now think if that $400 million has been invested in say some Netflix shares. They were around US$50 in 2014 or NZ $60. So they could have purchased 6.66 million shares in Netflix. Today those shares are US$692 on NZ$1,105. So we’d have $7.36 billion rather than an asset that is now probably worth close to zero on the open market.
The Government wants to “get tough” on the “selfish behaviour” of people who misuse car parks reserved for disabled people by hiking the fine by 400%.
Towage and impoundment fees and parking infringement fees are also going up. Some haven’t been updated since 2004 and the minister said it can now be cheaper to pay a parking ticket rather than paying for parking in Auckland.
Louise Upston, the Minister for Disability Issues, today said misusing car parks for disabled people was the “epitome of arrogance” and the financial penalty will increase from $150 to $750.
I think this is a good move. $150 is not enough of a deterrent.
It does remind me of one of the funniest stories I have heard from a friend of mine some years ago. He was driving from Auckland to Wellington and stopped in Taihape for a toilet stop. The public toilets had a huge carpark with no cars in them, so he parked in the space next to the toilet, even though it was marked as a disabled park. He thought that as it was a Sunday afternoon in Taihape with an empty carpark, the chance of it inconveniencing anyone was close to zero.
However as he came out of the toilet he was horrified to see a bus parked next to his car. A bus for disabled kids, with a dozen kids on board who were being helped out of the into their wheelchairs etc. And all 12 kids were staring at this guy who was parked in their park! Safe to say he slunk away and never did it again 🙂
National MP David MacLeod says he is “hugely relieved” by the police decision not to take any action over his failure to declare more than $178,000 in donations before the last election.
The Electoral Commission referred the issue to police to investigate in June after MacLeod initially failed to declare the donations in his 2023 return, something he said was “a genuine mistake”.
Police have decided not to take any further action against the New Plymouth MP over it. MacLeod had amended his return in May to include the missing donations after the National Party discovered they had not been disclosed during post-election checks.
MacLeod told the NZ Herald it was the result of a genuine mistake and he had addressed it once it was discovered.
I believe this was the wrong decision by Police, and another example of why they should not be the body that enforces electoral law.
I am sure it was absolutely a genuine mistake, but the Electoral Act takes that into account. Here’s S209(B)(2):
A candidate who files a return under section 209 that is false in any material particular is guilty of
The return was false, as it omitted $178,000 of donations.
a corrupt practice if he or she filed the return knowing it to be false in any material particular
As it was a genuine mistake (he thought the return was only for donations in 2023, and didn’t realise it was for his entire candidacy) the Police are correct not to regard the false return as a corrupt practice.
an illegal practice in any other case
So the law is designed so that there is a lesser offence for accidental false returns. But there is a way to escape even that:
unless the candidate proves that he or she had no intention to misstate or conceal the facts; and he or she took all reasonable steps in the circumstances to ensure that the information in the return was accurate.
Now again the candidate had no intention to misstate but to escape an illegal practice you also need to have taken all reasonable steps to ensure it was accurate.
It is contestable whether all reasonable steps were taken, such as seeking advice. As it is contestable, I think the Police should have laid a charge of an illegal practice, so that the court could decide is all reasonable steps were taken. It could well be that they decide in the candidate’s favour, but I want a court to decide that, not the Police.
The Marsden Fund is funded by taxpayers and administered by the Royal Society.
It is meant to be for research in science, engineering and maths, social sciences and the humanities. It says it is regarded as the hallmark of excellence for research in New Zealand.
Their grants are online since 2008, so in my spare time I have been analysing them, and dividing them into four rough categories.
Science
Humanities/Social Science
Maori/Colonialism
Identity (gender/ethnic/refugee focus etc)
Policy/Political
Here’s how the proportions have changed over time.
2008
2017
2023
Science
88%
80%
72%
Humanities
8%
11%
13%
Maori
3%
5%
8%
Identity
1%
2%
5%
Political
0%
3%
2%
So almost 90% of the funding used to go to what you might call hard sciences, and it has now fallen to under three quarters. At the current rate, science will get less than half the funding within a couple of decades.
Maybe the Government should take away 75% of the Marsden Fund from the Royal Society and give it to a new science body, and leave them to distribute the remaining 25% to whatever their current fashion dictates.
The Local Government Minister is questioning why patched members of a gang were able to wear their regalia inside a council building when a ban is in force.
The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council faces backlash over a Facebook post featuring photos of patched gang members celebrating the decision in its council chambers to retain its Māori constituencies.
On Wednesday, in what was described as a “significant step towards ensuring Māori representation”, the council voted unanimously to keep its Māori wards. This means there will be a binding poll at the next local government elections in 2025.
But the Facebook post released by the council soon after featuring photos of patched gang members celebrating the decision has been met with frustration from Simeon Brown, who is surprised a current patch ban was not enforced at a meeting.
Members of the public also hit the comment section with concerns about the presence of gang members in the meeting.
Members of the public will be grateful that they will get to decide the issue in a secret ballot, rather than have the final decision made at a Council meeting with patched gang members in attendance to support one particular view.
The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council justified its decision in the Facebook comments.
“We acknowledge that seeing gang paraphernalia can be distressing to some people, and we appreciate your feedback on our post,” it said.
“Regional Council meetings are open to all members of the public and our post is a factual record of this meeting. We do not have the authority to exclude members of the public who are following our meeting rules.”
This is nonsense. If a dozen people tried to enter the meeting naked, the Council would not allow them to do so. The Council does have the authority to tell people that they must be dressed in accordance with the law, to enter. Bars do this every day.
“I am pleased to announce that Grant Illingworth KC has been appointed as the Chair of Phase 2 of the Inquiry. Mr Illingworth joined the Inquiry in July to support the final stages of Phase 1 and will assist the Inquiry in transitioning to Phase 2.”
“I am also pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will be joined by Judy Kavanagh and Anthony Hill, who have been appointed as Commissioners for Phase 2. Their experience in economics and public health respectively will benefit the Inquiry in achieving its purpose.”
These look to be excellent appointments for the phase that will be looking at the decisions made, and the weighing up of economic and social benefits. The three Commissioners are:
A KC who specialises in public and constitutional law
A public policy professional and economist
A barrister with specialist health sector experience including having been Health and Disability Commissioner, Deputy Director-General of Health and Ministry of Health’s chief legal counsel
At around 8pm on Friday August 23rd , in front of an overflow crowd of 17,000 (with 6,000 turned away) at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale Arizona (a huge indoor ice hockey rink often used for concerts and located in one of the suburban cities of the Phoenix area), the son of assassinated Kennedy administration Attorney-General Robert (Bobby) Kennedy and nephew of assassinated US President John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Junior (RFK Jr) emerged onto the stage and, backdropped by perfectly timed indoor fireworks, shook the hand of former President Donald Trump in one of the most consequential political endorsements in the modern Presidential era!
What are the impacts of such a momentous political event in the midst of one of the most eventful Presidential election seasons in decades?
1 – Impact of RFK Jr’s Evisceration of the Democrat Party
At 11am the same day, at a hotel in downtown Phoenix, as the perfect entre to the Main Course served at the Glendale Arena later that evening, RFK gave one of the most masterful discourses on the state of modern US politics and in it, he utterly tore apart his former party in one of the most damning and devastating eviscerations of the Democrats, Biden and Harris you will ever hear. In 47 minutes, he laid bare:
Harris’ consummate incompetence and unsuitability for office “I do interviews every day. Everyone who asks gets to interview me. Sometimes I do 10 a day. President Trump also does many interviews. How could the Democrat Party choose a candidate who refuses to do an interview?” Yes, finally Harris did one …. a softball, edited, scripted faltering interview on the most Democrat friendly network with her ‘chaperone’ VP nominee Tim Waltz.
What the modern Democrat Party has become: “It became the party of war, censorship, corruption, big Pharma, big tech, and big money.”
Detailing the vicious lawfare that was waged against him to first shut him out of the Democrat Primary and then to keep him off the ballot in as many states as possible once he announced his run as an Independent: “In the name of saving democracy, the Democratic Party set itself to dismantling it. Lacking confidence that its candidate could win in a fair election at the voting booth, the DNC waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself.”
His speech culminated in his endorsement of Donald Trump and some of his reasons for the endorsement: “Last summer, it looked like no candidate was willing to negotiate a quick end to the Ukraine war, to tackle chronic disease epidemic, to protect free speech, our constitutional freedoms, to clean corporate influence out of our government, or to defy the neocons and their agenda of endless military adventurism. And now one of the candidates has adopted these issues as his own, at a point where he has asked to enlist me in his administration. I’m speaking, of course, of Donald Trump.”
Whilst the legacy corporate media tried to muddy his message by either talking over his speech, cutting away from it or not covering it at all, RFK’s Twitter link to his speech was shared by Trump, Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson across their hugely popular accounts on various platforms where tens of millions viewed his speech. The subsequent attempts at undermining Kennedy by Democrat talking heads have mostly fallen flat.
2 – Impact on the DNC
Vice President Kamala Harris’ bloodless coup on President Joe Biden and her ascension as the official Democrat nominee for President in the November 5, 2024 Presidential election without a single Primary vote cast was predictably met with fawning sycophantic MSM media coverage. This culminated at the Democrat National Convention held in Chicago from August 19 to 22. Harris gave a slick, well-choreographed but largely vapid and substance-less speech on the final night of the DNC to what was expected to be days of MSM hype and uncritical praise. Conventions are worth anything from a 5 to 10% bounce in the polls post-convention. Hillary enjoyed a 5% bump over Trump in late August 2016 and Biden got a 7% bounce in 2020. The RFK endorsement wiped Kamala and the DNC off every front page and lead broadcast and dominated the media news cycle for the following week as Trump and RFK gave substantive interviews fleshing out more details of their 16 months of discussions that led to this unique alliance.
Whilst most of the MSM aligned and promoted polls have been screwing the polling scrum somewhat since Harris’ ascension in the race by reducing Republican turnout and increasing Democrat turnout models giving Harris artificially high and often conflicting polling leads, if you factor in the two or three least biased and most historically accurate polls (Rasmussen, Democracy Institute and Des Moines Register), it is clear that Harris emerged from the DNC with no discernable bounce largely thanks to the RFK endorsement leaving her and Trump statistically neck and neck in both the national popular vote and the battleground state polls. Given that Trump over performed in the MSM aligned polls by about 5% in 2016 and 2020, the truth is Harris exits their huge weeklong DNC promo likely behind Trump as we enter into the real meat of the campaign post US Labor Day weekend (this weekend).
3 – Impact of RFK’s campaign suspension
RFK has not formally ended his campaign rather he has indicated he will be taking his name off the ballot in 10 battleground or swing states (AZ, PA, GA, WI, MI, NV, FL, OH, NC and IA). He will stay on the ballots in so-called Blue states (Democrat) and also in whatever strong Red states (Republican) where he might have managed to get on the ballot. This means that the presence of RFK on the ballot in the key states Trump needs to win is no longer a possible distraction whilst RFK reserves the right to try and split the vote in the less strong blue states like say Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia where Biden did win in 2020 but by under 10% in the hopes of triggering a Trump upset in states no longer considered pure swing states. This a very cunning and savvy strategy. It’s unclear how successful he will be in extracting his name off the ballot in all of the swing states as planned. He has succeeded in doing so in PA, GA, NV and AZ but in WI, NC and MI, local Democrat election officials are standing in the way of his name removal.
4 – Impact in battleground states
RFK’s polling in battleground states varied between 4 and 7% with 5% being the average. On paper that doesn’t sound much but the dynamics of the race since Biden stood down is that the switch to Harris almost halved Kennedy’s polling numbers. This is because he was mopping up Dem voters who were either anti Biden or, post Biden’s disastrous debate against Trump, were despondent that the Dems could win with Biden at the top of the ticket and so voting for RFK was a kind of small protest vote. With the temporary sugar high of the Harris campaign fueled by over-the-top uncritical media fawning, some of the despondent or disgruntled Dem voters flirting with RFK came home. This meant that the residual 5% of RFK’s vote was much more likely to be Republicans not comfortable with Trump and seeing RFK as a better option that voting Democrat. Indeed, surveys done by the Kennedy and Trump campaigns and some early post endorsement polling indicates that 67% to 75% of that residual RFK vote will now go to Trump which means an up to 2 to 3% bump for Trump in key battleground states. In a tight race where some polls still have Harris up and others have Trump up in these key states, even a small percentage of new voters arising from the endorsement is only going to benefit Trump rather than Harris.
5 – Impact on women voters
One of the most interesting aspects of the endorsement has been to read literally dozens of Twitter monologues of the political journey of anti-Trump ‘soccer moms’ for whom RFK’s endorsement of Trump and the planned roles have excited them and caused them to overlook what they saw as Trump’s negative traits. Trump has polled poorly amongst college educated suburban women due to his aggressive persona, mean Tweets, presumed racism and his frat boy alpha male image. Kennedy’s championing of child health has resulted in a sizeable minority following of very influential health oriented female social media influencers and their excitement about what Kennedy may be able to achieve in Trump’s new administration is bring many of them over to publicly saying they will vote for Trump. RFK’s endorsement, and the mutual goals he and Trump are setting in the public health space, is softening Trump’s image with one of the few demographics that he is still struggling with. RFK doesn’t just bring his direct supporters over to Trump, but he gives permission for hundreds of thousands of former never Trump women, many of whom are moderate Republican, Libertarian or old school socially conservative Democrats but who were stuck on Trump’s personality negatives.
6 – RFK’s likely role in a 2nd Trump Administration
This marriage was many months in the making and in recent days, RFK in particular has given a lot more detail on the process he went through to get to the decision he made. It was a decision not made lightly and Trump’s willingness to more fully embrace some key planks of the things that drive Kennedy only came after his own brush with death at the Butler, PA rally on July 13th. Kennedy has become a very vocal opponent of Big Pharma to the point that social media companies blocked some of his commentary during Covid over the lab leak origin, Dr Anthony Fauci’s role in gain of function research and the C19 vaccine efficacy and side effects and indeed RFK has become a more prominent critic of vaccines in general. In more recent years he has widened his attacks on Big Food over addictive chemical additives in American food and the deleterious impact on obesity and child health. Expats in the US all attest to the poor quality of mainstream food available in the US and how we have to carefully read labels and hunt for niche suppliers to find the quality of food we take for granted in NZ. In his speech, RFK set his sights firmly on the corruption he sees in all the big regulatory and government research agencies seen to be in the pocket of Big Pharma, Big Food and chemical companies. It is highly likely Trump will appoint Kennedy as his Health and Human Services Secretary with oversight over the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), the CDC (Centre for Diseases Control), the NIH (National Institute of Health – a health research funding clearing house) and other agencies. This prospect was the main driver for RFK accepting the new relationship with Trump as he would have real power to clean shop in these agencies.
Whilst Trump announced this at the Glendale rally with RFK by his side, this appointment got limited media attention, but Trump will appoint Kennedy to a role investigating US Presidential assassination attempts. With this comes the promise of a full declassification of the JFK assassination files, a step Trump was talked out of by the intelligence agencies in his first term. Kennedy has been on the public record in his belief that CIA connected operatives were responsible for the murder of his father and uncle, a view hitherto viewed by the establishment and for a long time many Americans as a conspiracy theory. With so many questionable and multiple lapses in security under the administration of the US Secret Service over the attempted assassination of Trump, on this issue these two men are both of a mind to really get to the bottom of what happened to the Kennedy brothers and at Butler PA that day. This portends some tantalising new material likely to excite the growing minority of Americans who see nefarious ‘Deep State’ fingerprints all over these assassinations.
Conclusion
The mood of the country and even the elite chattering classes can be summed up in this iconic New York Post front page. The story of the Kennedy clan and their travails still captivates America all these decades later and they were lions and icons of the Democrat party for a generation. That one of their favoured sons would endorse a man like Trump is a political earthquake the impact of which is only just now beginning to be felt.
Posties have refused to deliver a circular claiming the Wellington City Council wants the capital’s six mosques to broadcast the Islamic Call to Prayer across the city.
The Postal Workers Union said its Wellington-based posties did not deliver the circular from lobby group Better Wellington on Monday because of its “misleading and inflammatory statement”, but NZ Post reaffirmed intentions to begin deliveries on Tuesday.
A NZ Post spokesperson said it was not appropriate for them to act as a censor in determining what it would and won’t deliver.
Any postie who refuses to deliver legal mail because they disagree with it, should lose their jobs.
If the circular breaches the law, you can complain to the Human Rights Commission or Police.
If the circular is a breach of advertising standards, you can complain to the ASA.
But you don’t get to unilaterally decide what information households are allowed to receive.
It is disturbing that a union is claiming it has the right to decide what mail does and does not get delivered.
For around 20 years women in Afghanistan were free. Then the Taliban took power again, and many said they would not be as extreme as last time. Sadly they are more extreme.
This is what women are now banned from doing in Afghanistan:
A bitter dispute over a school speech competition has gone all the way to the High Court, with a judge forced to weigh in.
Tamamutu Mitchell – then a student at Taupō immersion school Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Whakarewa i Te Reo ki Tūwharetoa – won the regional round of last year’s Ngā Manu Kōrero, a prestigious event in te reo Māori education.
But while his speech finished exactly on the 12-minute mark, which was the maximum permitted time, it was followed by a haka tautoko, which Mitchell led for other students in the room. (A haka tautoko is an expression of support for an event that has just finished.)
His runner-up subsequently complained that the haka tautoko had caused Mitchell’s speech to go over time. He was slapped with a five-point penalty by the event’s national committee, which meant he narrowly lost to the runner-up by one point, and had to return his trophy – and missed out on representing his region at the competition’s national stage.
How ridiculous. He won the competition and kept to the time. To award him the trophy then take it away is cruel.
Furious with the decision, and with their appeals falling on deaf ears, Mitchell’s supporters took competition backer the Post-Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) all the way to the High Court for a judicial review.
In it, he lambasts the PPTA for its handling of the dispute, which amounted to a “breach of natural justice”.
Justice Muir said:
I consider the PPTA’s response both surprising and disappointing. The constitution of the PPTA includes “explicit … commitment to the principles to the Treaty of Waitangi as central to [its] Constitution.”It acknowledges the PPTA’s “commitment to the concept of genuine partnership embodied in the Treaty”,7 noting that: “partnership can occur at all levels of policy making by the sharing of power and decision making, satisfactory methods of consultation and the inclusion of cultural perspectives in policies
Ms Barton denies that the matter ever proceeded to National Committee decision. She says that whatever assistance the Regional Committee may have received from the National Committee, the ultimate decision remained that of the Regional Committee. I regard that position as untenable. On its face the decision refers to it being that of the National Committee. I consider it surprising that a senior executive of the PPTA would, in affidavit evidence, promote a proposition so clearly at odds with the written record and that this position was maintained by the PPTA’s counsel in submissions.
The Post notes:
However, Justice Muir denied the application for judicial review on the technical basis that the respondent should have been the competition’s committee rather than the PPTA.
A former Reserve Bank employee was locked out of her office building after a dispute that saw her threaten to take the bank “to the cleaners”.
Sounds bad, but isn;’t in reality.
Things went awry for the woman when she began searching for her next job in July 2023. She received a conditional offer of employment from an organisation that was subject to satisfactory reference checks.
When the organisation withdrew its offer the woman believed it was because the two referees she had nominated had made negative comments during the reference checks.
One referee was her Wellington-based team leader, the other was a colleague in the Auckland office.
The woman sent messages to both referees which they found concerning. She repeatedly told her team manager that she had “backstabbed” her.
This is a bad idea. That is not the way you raise an issue if you think reference was unfair.
The bank became concerned about the woman’s welfare and asked how she felt about finishing at the bank but remaining on full pay for the rest of her contract while she sought another job.
The woman wasn’t happy with this and posted on her work team’s group chat the next morning to claim the bank was trying constructively dismiss her.
“I don’t care anymore I will take RBNZ to the cleaners… I’m disgusted. I’m applying for legal aid and I will absolutely take RBNZ to the cleaners at the MBIE or Employment Relations Authority or even as high as the damn Employment Court,” she wrote.
Posting on a work chat channel you will take the employer to the cleaners is a bad idea.
Following that message the bank suspended the woman’s electronic access to her RBNZ email, remote working systems and buildings, and sought a meeting with her.
The woman didn’t attend the meeting. She remained on paid leave until her contract ended.
She has little to complain about – she got paid out the rest of her contract.
The bank, in reply, said the woman wasn’t suspended. It said she had agreed to a period of paid leave and subsequently refused to return to work. The bank said its decision to to disable her access to its systems was a fair and reasonable response to the messages she was sending colleagues.
Authority member Robin Arthur said the bank had behaved fairly towards the woman, by proposing she take paid leave for a “cooling off” period.
Labour’s Ginny Andersen ran to media with a story she claimed showed there were less police foot patrols under National as the number in June 2024 was 15% lower than in December 2023.
Now you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to work out that comparing the number of foot patrols in December to June is rather stupid as summer months are longer and warmer with much more activity than June. Also December is the month with a huge amount of outdoors activities.
Brickbat goes to Labour’s former Police Minister Ginny Andersen for claiming police foot patrols have dropped by comparing December figures and June figures, and knowing that patrols peak in December for Christmas and New Year. There are increases and decreases in parts of the country but overall, foot patrols have increased by 13.6% January to June, compared with the same period last year.
It’s great Ginny went to such effort to make sure everyone that the are more police foot patrols in 2024 than in 2023.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the party’s tax policy is still a live discussion after the Labour Party social media account shared an account of a party meeting where former Revenue Minister David Parker allegedly discussed something called a Capital Income Tax.
Hipkins confirmed members were discussing a range of taxes,
“There’s a lot of conversation within the Labour Party at the moment around different forms of taxation: capital gains tax, wealth tax, combinations of the two, land taxes,” Hipkins said.
So many taxes they want to do.
The reality is that the tax take massively increased under Labour. In 2017 tax revenue was $76 billion and in 2023/24 it had risen to $119 billion.
We don’t need more taxes. What we need is a faster growing economy.
The Government should closely scrutinise the visa application of Holocaust denier Candace Owens, the chair of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand has urged.
Owens, an American far-right activist with a history of antisemitic, Islamophobic and homophobic comments, is visiting Auckland in November as part of a speaking tour which will also take her to Australia.
While Jewish groups across the Tasman have urged their government to reject Owens’ visa application, views are more split in New Zealand.
I would be aghast if she was not allowed into NZ, and/or allowed to speak.
I say this as someone who finds her views repugnant and hateful.
I had generally been aware of her for several years as she was a rarity – a young black woman who was very conservative and pro-Trump – and articulate in presenting her views. I had a fairly neutral opinion of her.
But in the last 12 months especially her views have either changed or she is being more open about what she believes. She has become a promoter of numerous conspiracy theories, as opposed to merely being sceptical of official lines.
But more blatantly she has said and promoted things that are clearly anti-semitic, such as defending Josef Mengele, saying the Holocaust was “almost” ethnic cleansing but what the Allies did was actual ethnic cleansing. She has also done the old blood libel on Twitter and claimed Stalin was Jewish, Jews killed JFK, a Jewish cult does paedophilia etc.
So I have huge contempt for Owens and her views. But that doesn’t mean she should be banned – she should be challenged. People should go to her meeting and quote her words back to her and point out how she fixates on Jewish conspiracies. Or just ignore her and hope no one buys tickets.
“We are aware of Ms Owens’ hateful, racist, historically illiterate and frankly stupid statements, that include but go well beyond Holocaust denial, and suggest an unhealthy delusional fixation on the Jewish people who constitute 0.2 percent of the world’s population,” Jewish Council of New Zealand spokesperson Juliet Moses told Newsroom.
“However, like all the other antisemites who have visited these shores over recent years, some of whom have been platformed at houses of worship, on media and even at Parliament, we will not be opposing her visit.”
Police have arrested every patched member of the Christchurch chapter of the Comancheros in a massive blow to the international bikie gang’s reach into the South Island.
They’ve also seized millions of dollars worth of drugs, cash and guns as part of a major eight-month investigation into the gang’s illicit activities.
That investigation, dubbed Operation Avon, terminated on Wednesday, when about 30 properties were raided in Christchurch and Auckland.
Eighteen men, aged 18-55, had been arrested including every patched member of the Christchurch chapter of the Comancheros, Detective Inspector Darrin Thomson said in a statement on Thursday morning.
Police seized 5kg of class A drugs, 11 guns, ammunition, and about $250,000 cash.
That is an impressive operation by the Police.
I much prefer arresting gangs for criminal activity, rather than giving them taxpayer money to run drug rehabilitation courses for victims of the drugs they sell.
On 29 July I asked if the Stats NZ manager who was paid by taxpayers to attend Ratana and insulted Ministers had kept his job.
The Taxpayers’ Union sent in an OIA (unknown to me) asking that question, and they have received a reply, which they forwarded on to me.
Stats NZ has responded that the former staff member is no longer employed by Stats NZ and that no payment was made under S123 of the Employment Relations Act.
This seems the appropriate outcome. No one should lose their job merely for being politically active. But you can’t get up at a public forum (let alone one you attend in a work capacity) and unleash insults towards the Ministers who you are meant to serve, and expect no consequences.
We have both a short-term and long-term energy challenge. The high wholesale electricity price is because of supply shortages. The Government has announced some steps towards the short-term supply problem, being:
Act with urgency to reverse the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, with legislation passed by the end of 2024
Remove regulatory barriers to the construction of critically needed facilities to import Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as a stop gap
Ease restrictions on electricity lines companies owning generation
Ensure access for gentailers to hydro contingency
Improve electricity market regulation
These all seem sensible and necessary. However long-term we don’t want to be importing LNG etc. So they also announced:
Establishing a one-stop-shop fast track approvals and permitting regime
Amendments to the RMA to speed up resource consenting
Stronger national direction for renewable energy
A new regime for offshore wind
Updated regulatory settings for electricity networks and new connections
A good example of why these changes are needed is:
“To give a practical example of how the RMA currently operates, in 2003 the Te Apiti windfarm site took 77 days to consent and had 20 conditions attached to that consent. In contrast, the Mill Creek windfarm site, completed in 2014, took 1,437 days, and had 90 conditions attached. This is unacceptable if we want to take renewables seriously.
“Even renewing consents for existing renewable power assets takes far too long. Hearings and appeals to reconsent the Clyde and Roxburgh dams, and Wairakei, ran from 2001 to 2007. It took 18 years to re-consent the Raetihi hydro dam – and when that consent was finally renewed, the number of consent conditions had increased from 4 to 136.
In just a decade the consenting time for a wind farm increased almost 2000%
Fisheries Minister Shane Jones called a High Court Judge a “Communist Judge” during a meeting with the seafood industry over Māori rights.
High Court Judge, Justice Cheryl Gwyn, who has awarded Customary Marine Titles to Māori, comes up in the meeting notes.
“[Jones] described Justice Gwyn (Judge in Wairarapa matter) as a “Communist Judge”.
There are a number of interesting aspects here.
The first is that Gwyn was a member of Socialist Action for at least four years, after she graduated (and possibly for a decade before that). Her politics then were probably Trotskyite or communist. That does not mean of course she has the same views today.
The second is that it is a bad idea for a Minister to disparage a judge. Now this was in a private meeting, not a public statement, so the Cabinet Manual doesn’t; come into play, but Ministers and Judges should be respectful to each other.
The third is that Gwyn has served well in various roles. I can’t say I follow her career closely but I thought she was an excellent Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, transforming that role from a fairly toothless role to a very active role which has helped increase confidence in our intelligence and security arrangements by having such rigorous scrutiny.
The final interesting aspect is that Gwyn’s years of Marxist or communist activism hasn’t held her back. Despite having been a far-left activist she has become a Deputy Secretary of Justice, Acting Solicitor-General, Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (appointed by a National PM) and a High Court Judge. Now I think this is all appropriate, but I do ask if the same would have happened to a lawyer who spent a decade as a far-right activist? It is unconceivable. So there is a double standard that extremism on one side of politics is acceptable, but not on the other.
There is some good news in that in Term 1 of this year that number reduced to 14 schools with below 30% full attendance. There is a caveat to that good news though. In term 1 2024 overall attendance, including Primary) was 61.7%. In Term 2 it was down below T4 2023 at 53.2% (down 0.4%).
The breakdown of the Term 2 statistics will be released on the 26th of September.
Schools now run under an Equity Index Number. The Ministry have decided to publish data in “EQI Bands”. For those still thinking in deciles “Fewest” are close to what high decile schools were – “Most” synonymous with low decile. Attendance is anonymised. It is the only major stat that is and cannot think of a good reason. This is the breakdown by band.
Huge need to get the young people who need it the most to school. As stated above – in the main assessment term 60 high schools has less than 30% full attendance. The impact of these stats on our country are immense and now that Charter Schools are back on the table the PPTA are trying to tell anyone who will listen that they have things under control.
EQI Band (least to most “at risk students”.
Term 4 2023 Full AttendanceNZ High Schools
Term 1 2024 Full AttendanceNZ High Schools
Fewest amount
Avg. 62% Lowest 42.9%
Avg. 70% Lowest 62.3%
Few
Avg. 51.2% Lowest 3.3%
Avg. 62.5% Lowest 31%
Below Average amount
Avg. 51% Lowest 12.7%
Avg. 59.6% Lowest 39.2%
Average amount
Avg. 44% Lowest 5.7%
Avg. 56% Lowest 43.2%
Above Average amount
Avg. 41.7% Lowest 23.4%
Avg. 50.6% Lowest 34.8%
Many
Avg. 31.3% Lowest 13.2%
Avg. 42.9% Lowest 22.9%
Most “at risk” students
Avg. 24.9% Lowest 7.5%
Avg. 34.1% Lowest 11.4%
Total for High Schools (not private).
Avg. 43.4%
Avg. 53%
NB: For those who want the full data-process/set I do for the LEAVERS of every high school in NZ by achievements – please email me on alwyn.poole@gmail.com
